For detailed information, see Robert
B. Zeuschner'sEdgar Rice Burroughs: The Bibliography (ERB,
Inc., 2016).Click on www.erbbooks.com
or call 214-405-6741 to order a copy.

After finishing The Moon Maid,
Ed abandoned the Ediphone and returned to writing directly on the typewriter.
He thought that this made for more action and a better knit story. In later
years, however, he returned to the use of a dictating machine, the Dictaphone.The need for a respite from the jungle and fantasy stories
prompted him to seek for ideas elsewhere, but in the new writing he resorted
to an overused theme — intrigue centering about the monarchy in a miniature
kingdom. "Beware," written from August 9 to 31, 1922, features the plotting
of revolutionaries to seize power in Assuria. However, Burroughs does devise
a new approach, shifting from the Assurian revolution, the death of the
king and queen, and the flight of the infant crown prince to a resumption
of events twenty-two years later in New York City. In the prologue, where
the royal tragedy occurs, the newly born Prince Alexander is saved by Lieutenant
Donovan, an officer of the foreign corps. Mrs. Donovan, who herself had
given birth to a son two days before, pretends that twins had been born;
taking the young prince, she and her husband flee. On board the ocean liner
one of the infants dies.

With the passage of twenty-two years, Macklin Donovan,
established as a son of the former Assurian officer, becomes the main character.
The older Donovan is a police lieutenant, while Macklin, working in the
United States Secret Service, is investigating the involvement of wealthy
Mason Thorn with a group of Assurians. The interest in Macklin displayed
by the snobbish Mrs. Glassock and her daughter Genevieve is motivated by
his supposed family prestige and wealth. Macklin is really in love with
the exotic Nariva, a mysterious guest.

The story now takes an unexpected direction. Messages
to Macklin, printed notes containing the single word "Beware," emanate
from a locked closet. The incidents that follow create an impression of
a typical detective story. The mystery involves various secret panels that
lead to the adjoining house where the conspirators are operating. At the
ending Burroughs prefers to leave the most puzzling question unanswered.
Is Macklin Donovan really the Crown Prince Alexander? Only Mrs. Donovan,
gravely ill and not expected to live, can supply the answer. But she is
in a coma, and whether she ever gains consciousness and makes a statement
is not revealed.

In sending the 24,000-word story to Davis, Burroughs suggested
that the editor read the prologue last to see what the effect would be.
In this case the early events in Assuria would emerge at the end as a type
of additional denouement. Davis' evaluation of "Beware," sent on
September 12, 1922, was one of blunt disapproval: . . I think Beware
is the nearest approach to mediocrity that ever came from your pen, and
Lord, Edgar, how did you come to fall back among the Russians, the Grand
Dukes, Prince Alexander, Crown Princes, then drag them and their descendants
along with Saranov down to the present day. That whole bunch smell to high
heaven in fiction... .

One rejection had never been convincing to Burroughs,
and the usual list of submissions followed. Refusals came from Blue Book
(1922) and Detective Tales & Weird Tales (1923). An offer of $230 for
the story by Weird Tales in 1929 was turned down. Sales efforts continued,
and a rejection by Detective Book was received in 1938. Finally, in 1939,
"Beware" was purchased by Raymond Palmer, editor of Fantastic Adventures,
for $245. With some of the characters and plot elements changed by Palmer,
and the time setting projected to the year 2190, "Beware" was now
transformed from a hodgepodge royal intrigue-detective mystery novelette
to a science-fiction story and published in the July 1939 issue of the
magazine, where it somehow acquired the incongruous title of "The Scientists
Revolt." ~ Porges

COVER
GALLERY

Fan publication by LOHAE Press ~ Dayton, Ohio ~ 2008

Mike Hoffman
has published an illustrated edition of ERB's story Beware!